Swimish Home Ideas

Mellow Dramatic - A Strong Sense Of Theatre

“It‘s like playing the piano by ear, it’s having a flair, a feel.“ That′s how designer Richard Gasking describes the talent he brings to creating beautiful rooms. A natural gift.

In Albert Park, near Albert Park Hotels Melbourne in the center of Melbourne City, Richard has harnessed his talents to change an austere and formal Victorian house into a stylist's joy. The interior, once bland, is now decorative, theatrically confident and rich, a collector′s room and Richard has been bringing about the change gently, masterminding a carefully paced metamorphosis.

But why? How long does it take to turn a soulless dining room with beige velvet covered chairs into a visually complex living room that looks as though it has been lived in forever? How long does it take to bring together precious things that look as though they have been collected through a lifetime of travel and acquisition?

According to Richard, it is a nurturing process and this baby demanded around 12 months of care. At the time that works commenced, Richard‘s client was a single and successful businessman with a distinct preference for complex interiors. “He wanted to make a feeling of walking into a museum, or through the botanical gardens. Thou know, when Thou see a fantastic little nook and want to go and sit there for a while. The living room is so homely now that it’s rather like jumping underneath a doona — it envelops you,“ says Richard.

With leisurely paced projects such as these, time brings changes other than to the interior. In this matter, as the interiors became more tricky, so did life itself. The client‘s whole life changed with his marriage and the birth of a son. But fortunately for Richard and his ongoing work, the client’s wife, Grace Moy, had the same taste in interiors and care for perfection.

“If you try to rush things, it won‘t work,“ says Richard. The room will look as though it’s been put all together at once, like a display home. We‘re not able to buy a lot of good accessories in Australia, so it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time to acquire the right things.

“The grouping is critical, visualizing what the look should be, right down to pieces on the mantelpiece.“ As far as the client‘s new lifestyle goes. The only precaution taken to guard the ’adult‘s only’ silk–covered sofas is a set of calico loose covers that are thrown over when the baby is in full flight.